It will be a series of fast, smart videos for experienced programmers
who want to learn a new thing. The videos will serve as a complement
to Stack’s Q&A, and are intended for that community.

The post has not seen any update since 2015. Was the idea dropped? It did receive opposition from many, but the general mood of the community was supportive, if you judge by the votes (767 up and 152 down).

I believe it was dropped because it lacked sex, violence and unicorns.
– LundinApr 7 '16 at 6:43

10

Personally I prefer textual advice on technical matters rather than videos. It might be that's not just me and so the SO TV didn't get sufficient attention.
– Tomáš Zato - Reinstate MonicaApr 7 '16 at 12:24

3 Answers
3

It never got the momentum I was hoping for, and so died not with a bang, but with a whimper. We got a very good video producer, and some talented (and generous) speakers, but after cough hours of effort we stopped seeing the payoff. (Not in terms of literal $$, but always-scarce hours and attention.)

On a certain level, I wish we (I) had tried harder. But I (we) also listened to our guts and saw more slog than glory, and dropped it.

it doesn't really fit the ethos of SO (answers for practical software issues). Or, at least videos aren't a good fit for that (e.g., code tutorials presented as videos are the worst things since Hitler, objectively speaking). It would be a much better fit for other sites on SE. Like turning a hot question on arqade into a two minute video. Keep it on the cheap and simple and you might find you've got something good.
– user1228Apr 6 '16 at 15:00

22

Were any videos ever finished? If so, can we get access to them?
– matt.Apr 6 '16 at 19:57

26

@Will If you're totally new at a topic, video code tutorials are the best thing since waffles
– Alexander DerckApr 7 '16 at 6:35

8

I use SO mostly at work. I could not possibly use video at work. I assume many other SO users have a similar constraint, which would at least in part explain why this didn't fly.
– Eike PierstorffApr 7 '16 at 7:27

@EikePierstorff why could you not use video at work? bandwidth? unsuitable conditions for watching ie too noisy or similar? Surely it can't be because 'video is not work, you're just watching tv'? why does the learning mechanism matter? We use pluralsight at work, and find it great for learning broadly about a new topic, before diving deeper with more targeted resources...
– Sam HolderApr 7 '16 at 7:40

12

Open plan office. Plus reading a Q&A takes a glance, watching a video takes concentration. And of course "video is not work" etc. (the "why" is something you would have to take it with my various employers, but watching video was not usually encouraged in my workplaces).
– Eike PierstorffApr 7 '16 at 7:43

I sometimes watch video tutorials on YT. I think they are most useful if they explain difficult concepts and least useful if it's just about how to do a single task (then I prefer a written answer). So it just might not be the best thing for StackOverflow but for other StackExchanges.
– TrilarionApr 7 '16 at 9:14

Explaining a programming concept is mostly sorta off topic on SO. It's kinda more sorta like on topic for Software Engineering. Another reason why expanding the scope for the project would have been a much better idea. Also, Hitler wouldn't approve, as he's only into watching people write code on youtube. And funny cat videos. Yes, even Hitler likes those.
– user1228Apr 7 '16 at 12:00

9

Personally, I never watch videos to learn something new. Usually it takes about 5 minutes to go through the topic that would take an hour in video - and they almost never have transcripts.
– SulthanApr 7 '16 at 21:10

From the original post you also see that they had to rely on volunteers:

What’s in it for you? Not least, you’ll work with Joel and the SO team to rehearse, refine and record a great presentation. We are not offering speaker fees, but will cover travel expenses within reason.

Please drop a note to tv@stackoverflow.com if you are interested, and we’ll chat.

The most upvoted answer (580 upvotes, 50 downvotes) was rather negative despite the positive voting on the question:

You want to start a Stack Exchange TV network, fine. But don't attach it to Stack Overflow. Let it sink or swim on its own.

Therefore I conclude:

Either they lost interest (may have been convinced by the top voted answer) or they did not receive enough volunteers. Neither did this idea swim on its own.

You should realize that the idea wasn't dropped at all, it was modified!

Observe one of the top voted comments in the question itself:

[...] It'd be much
more useful for the potential speakers to write instead, and have some
sort of a long-form SO or SE sub-site where such tutorials would be
welcome. Just think of the controls available when reading text. You
can copy-paste from it. [It can be translated to any language.] It's
just seems to be about the most counterproductive medium for educating
a programmer. [...] - Kuba Ober

I added the idea that "text" can be translated. It was mentioned by nobody, yet it is an important topic, since we have launched 3 alternate-language Stack Overflow sites, and have 100,000x as many non-English visitors on the main site.

If you connect the dots, the resulting idea is S/O Documentation, which is in beta as we speak. The idea can be used for enough purposes for acceptance by the many. They include all the ideas that SOTV was going to cover: Tutorials, Examples, and possibly in-depth Language Comparisons (this is much needed on S/O, and the Internet in general, and will reduce the number of these opinion-based questions here).